At 11 a.m., Wednesday morning, the House of Representatives met on the floor to cast their votes for Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s replacement — and, once again, in classic congressional style, instead of getting behind Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Republicans only managed to prolong the issue.
Jordan received a mere 199 votes — down one from his total on Friday. A total of four GOP lawmakers who had voted for Jordan on Tuesday, voted against him during the second round of voting. Meanwhile, Jeffries again garnered all 212 Democrat votes, more than Jordan, but not enough to become Speaker.
This morning’s failure comes close on the heels of a rather embarrassing voting episode on Tuesday, in which rampant Republican discord meant that the Democrat minority leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, received 12 more votes than Jordan, the majority party’s leading contender for the position. (RELATED: Kevin McCarthy Is No Conservative)
Jordan received just 200 votes after 20 of his fellow GOP lawmakers chose to vote for someone else (Rep. Steve Scalise, who dropped out of the speaker race last weekend, also received a small number of votes, as did McCarthy) leaving him 17 votes short of winning the election.
Jordan is a strikingly conservative candidate for the role; he was, according to Time magazine, one of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus. Two weeks ago, he received former President Donald Trump’s endorsement via a post on Truth Social: “[Jordan] will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
At this point, the House of Representatives has been gridlocked over the speaker debate for 15 days — ever since Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and seven of his colleagues voted to remove McCarthy. Scalise dropped out of the race on Thursday after failing to garner enough GOP support, leaving Jordan to try to convince the House that he ought to be the next speaker. (RELATED: Chaos for the Sake of Chaos Is Not Good Governance)
It’s not surprising that Jordan didn’t win during the first round of voting, and he said as much. “We’ve already talked to some members who are going to vote with us on the second ballot,” he said just hours after the first round of voting.
Obviously, he did get some of those votes — but then he lost more votes than he gained. Unfortunately, unlike in January when the House held 15 votes before selecting McCarthy for the position, Congress doesn’t have time for this kind of charade. It really needs to make some decisions on Israel, Ukraine, and the federal government’s budget for next year, and, until a speaker is elected, that kind of action is impossible.
The speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), doesn’t have much power, but some members of the House are warming to the idea of giving him the ability to introduce new bills on the floor. Fox News reported that Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Pa.) is planning on introducing a resolution later on Wednesday to consider expanding McHenry’s leadership powers. As of this writing, that hasn’t yet happened.
“After two weeks without a speaker of the House and no clear candidate with 217 votes in the Republican conference, it is time to look at other viable options. By empowering Patrick McHenry as speaker pro tempore we can take care of our ally Israel until a new speaker is elected,” Joyce told Fox.
That’s a resolution Jordan can get behind. “I think we gotta decide today, are we going to have a Republican speaker or … is the body going to adopt this resolution with the speaker pro team,” he said. “I think both questions should be called. Let’s get an answer.”
As it turns out, the American people are also interested in moving on from the deadlock in the house. According to Breitbart, congressional office phones have been ringing persistently with calls from Americans asking their representatives to just back Jordan and move on.